VERA’S SEASONS (2017)

A little girl Vera Zenko from Volozhin was chasing the cart, where during the Second World World German soldiers were taking away her pregnant mother, — and they took pity and threw her off the back of that cart. Vera was 91, when we met first time. She called her life “the last seasons” and recites her biography through what’s inside her wardrobe.

Vera and I met in Belarussian small city Volozhin in 2017, she was on her way to a pharmacy. Vera had an outstanding look which not all belarussian women would allow themselves to have. She was wearing huge sunglasses, a checkered dress, crimson socks and shoes. That was love from the first sight. I came to her to get aquainted and in five minutes I was sitting at the table in her house, and she was showing me her outfits and telling their story. Later I visited Vera in Volozhin a few times, staying the night in her house.

She lived all her life in a small city Volozhin that was in different historical eras a part of the Russian Empire, Poland, the Soviet Union and now Republic of Belarus. Her 4 brothers and sisters were blown all over Ukraine and Belarus. Vasil and Olga have left this life already, Nina and youngest Galina are left. Their parents were of peasant origin — the mother worked the land, and the father was “literate” and worked in local authorities, as we would call them now. Vera stayed in her home town — got married here, took her husband’s name Perepecha, had three children, worked and brought up grandchildren.

Once Vera told me, that she’s living her last seasons, when every spring can become the last one. Vera was no afraid of getting old. All her life is inside her wardrobe: every dress has its own touching and moving life story, its own memory. 

Vera passed away in February 2021. I’ve never met such brilliant and kind woman as Vera.